He Deserved It

"What are we doing here", I asked Keith as the waitress came by and handed us each a cup full of hot black coffee. It was the kind of coffee that can only come from a 24/7 diner, that stale somehow very thin and watery liquid that makes you a little sad just by looking at it. Knowing I desperately needed the caffeine, I would drink it all anyways.

Keith looked at me like he was disgusted by my question. "You know exactly why we're here Kayla. We need a rest, we need food and we need something to help us stay awake." Keith looked just as skeptical of the dark liquid sitting in front of him as I did. "Why don't places like this ever just make new coffee anyways."

"I don't know Keith, but like you said we need it." I started taking a sip of my coffee and it really tasted as bad as it looked. I gave off a little shudder and Keith started laughing at me. "Its not that bad," i fibbed, "it honestly tastes like some gourmet shit."

"Get out of here." He said as he tasted the coffee too. Keith didn't even flinch when he drank. I guess his stomach wasn't as weak as mine was. Honestly I'm glad he didn't have a weak stomach, or else we wouldn't be where we are now, I thought. Just then the bell at the front door rang, announcing that someone had entered. I turned around to see two men walk into the diner out of the darkness of the night. One man was wearing a beaten up, yet nice leather jacket, a worn out red shirt, grey jeans and a new pair of black sneakers. The other was wearing a navy blue sweater, with what looked like a white tee-shirt under it, blue jeans and an old beaten up pair of white tennis-shoes. The second man looked familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on where I knew him from.

I quickly stood up and looked at Keith. "I'm going to head to the bathroom and then I think we should leave." He just looked kind of confused. I wasn't sure why though. We would have to leave at some point in order to keep ourselves safe. I'm not an idiot, and what we did would leave us in trouble for a long time even if Keith and I were justified. I hastily walked over to the bathroom passing the table where the two men sat. I made eye contact with the second man as I passed him. His eyes were a light, faded green color that looked almost entirely grey. I felt cold as I looked in his eyes and I was instantly filled with guilt. I knew where he looked familiar now, I have no clue how I didn't notice it at first. His body was sitting in the back of my car.

I got into the three stall bathroom and locked the door. "This isn't possible," I whispered to myself. He cannot be alive. We killed him. He deserved it. He hurt me. We needed to do it. He deserved it. He deserved it. He's dead. I know he is. He deserved it. He deserved it. He deserved it. He deserved it. He deserved it. My mind was filled with panicked thoughts. I clutched my head in my hands and sat down on the floor, tears streaming down my tired face. Who was this very familiar stranger if not the man in the back of my car. Why does he look exactly like that awful person. I had vivid flashbacks to some stranger grabbing my hair from behind and trying to rip off my clothes, touching parts of me that didn't belong to him.

In the bathroom I gasped for air unable to breathe. He deserved it. He deserved it. I told myself this over and over again to try and help myself feel a little better about the whole situation. That man in the booth outside of this door cannot be the violent stranger who took advantage of me, he was dead. I watched the life fade from the stranger's eyes. Another flashback played in my mind, this time more foggy than the first. Me sitting halfway passed out as the stranger took what he wanted from me. Keith walked in to see what was going on and hit that horrible man hard. Keith hit him again and again and again. Eventually he climbed up on top of the stranger and choked him until he stopped moving. Keith was covered in blood and me in bruises, the dead man laying on the floor was covered in both.

Holy shit, I remember thinking. I looked at Keith and asked him what the hell we were going to do. It didn't matter that I had been raped. If we called the cops Keith would go to jail, even if he was justified. We had formulated a plan. We would tell our friends and family that we were going on a road trip. We would carry the body in the back of my car and cut of some part of him off at each stop and bury it somewhere random. We'd take an arm and leave it in Washington, a leg in Nevada, the head in New York or something. It seemed like a good plan and thus far it was working. We kept him wrapped up in a tarp in the back of the car and Keith would do all the cutting. I tried to help once, but I was so filled with violent urges I told Keith that I felt sick and decided to stay away from that aspect of the job. Now the only thing I do is help dig.

I gathered myself and stood up. I looked in the bathroom mirror. I smoothed out my hair and roughly brushed away my tears with the back of my sleeve. When I felt calm enough again I unlocked the bathroom door and went back out into the rest of the diner. The two strangers that had entered earlier were gone now, leaving me, Keith, and the waitress. I could see the sun starting to rise on the horizon through the window.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Yes." I was more than ready to leave now.

"Are you okay, Kayla? You were in there for a really long time."

"I'm okay. I just had to compose myself." Keith looked at me a little worried but he nodded, leaving it at that.

"I'm going to go pay the bill really quick. I don't know if the coffee was even worth the four bucks we owe them, but it doesn't matter. I'll go up and pay, do you want to go outside and start the car? Its your turn to drive anyways." I nodded and headed outside taking the keys out of the pocket of my light grey Carhartt. I started the car and waited for Keith to emerge from the dingy little restaurant. He climbed into the passenger side and I started driving away. The 24/7 diner in the review mirror, The Beatles' 'Yesterday' playing on the stereo, the open road ahead of me, and the dead man in the trunk of my car. One final time I told myself that he deserved it as I drove on.